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Regional Studies in Marine Science Wind and Tide Effects on the Choctawhatchee Bay Plume and Implications for Surface Transport

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Regional Studies in Marine Science Wind and Tide Effects on the Choctawhatchee Bay Plume and Implications for Surface Transport Regional Studies in Marine Science 35 (2020) 101131 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Regional Studies in Marine Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rsma Wind and tide effects on the Choctawhatchee Bay plume and implications for surface transport at Destin Inlet ∗ R. Cyriac a,b, , J.C. Dietrich a, C.A. Blain c, C.N. Dawson d, K.M. Dresback f, A. Fathi d,e, M.V. Bilskie g, H.C. Graber i, S.C. Hagen g,h, R.L. Kolar f a Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7908, 2501 Stinson Drive, Raleigh, NC, 27695, United States of America b Atkins, 1616 E Milbrook Street, Raleigh, NC, 27609, United States of America c Oceanography Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, MS, 39529, United States of America d Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, United States of America e ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, Corporate Strategic Research, 1545 Route 22 East, Annandale, NJ 08801, United States of America f School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, 202 W Boyd Street, Norman, OK, 73019, United States of America g Center for Coastal Resiliency, Louisiana State University, 124 C Sea Grant Hall, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, United States of America h Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, 3255 Patrick F Taylor Hall, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, United States of America i Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL, 33149, United States of America article info a b s t r a c t Article history: Multiple river-dominated estuaries line the northern Gulf coast and introduce substantial density Received 2 January 2019 variations. Their plumes have been shown to be highly sensitive to wind and tide effects, but in studies Received in revised form 26 January 2020 with limited observations and idealized wind forcing. This study explores these effects with a dynamic Accepted 30 January 2020 model that can represent the full behavior from river through estuary to shelf, and for a period with Available online 7 February 2020 extensive observations. The inner shelf adjacent to Choctawhatchee Bay, a micro tidal estuary situated Keywords: along the Florida Panhandle, is subject to buoyant, brackish outflows during the ebb-phase of the tidal ADCIRC cycle. Plume dynamics In December 2013, experiments were performed in this region to study mechanisms that influence Cold fronts near-shore surface transport. Satellite imagery showed a visible brackish surface plume at Destin Florida Panhandle during low tide. The goal of the present study is to quantify variability in the plume signature due SCOPE to changes in tidal and wind forcing. Density-driven flows near Destin Inlet are modeled with the CARTHE recently-enhanced, three-dimensional, baroclinic capabilities of the ADvanced CIRCulation (ADCIRC) model. Modeled tides, salinities and plume signature are validated against in-situ observations and satellite imagery. Model results reveal substantial changes in the length, width and orientation of the plume as the wind direction varied on consecutive days due to winter cold fronts. During a period of near-constant winds and variability in tidal amplitude, the model predicted a larger plume during spring tides than during neap conditions. Coriolis effects on the plume are minimized due to its small scale nature. Therefore, when the wind forcing is weak, the plume signature spreads radially from the inlet with slight preference to the down-shelf. The Choctawhatchee Bay plume is representative of other small-scale plumes formed in river-dominated and micro-tidal environments, and this work demonstrates the sensitivity of these plumes to changing environmental conditions. ' 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction that can cause the slowing down and convergence of offshore surface material (Roth et al., 2017) and thus prevent its transport Freshwater inflows from riverine sources interact with the toward the shoreline. The interaction of these outflows with the coastal ocean in the vicinity of estuarine mouths. These river shelf waters also determine the fate and transport of river-borne plumes can create strong density gradients near the coastline nutrients, sediments, larvae, plankton, etc. (Mestres et al., 2007; Xia et al., 2007; Chant et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2010; Androulidakis ∗ Corresponding author at: Atkins, 1616 E Milbrook Street, Raleigh, NC, 27609, and Kourafalou, 2011; Greer et al., 2018). Therefore, river plumes United States of America. play an important role in regulating the biogeochemical processes E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Cyriac). occurring at the shelf, and knowledge of plume behavior and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2020.101131 2352-4855/' 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 2 R. Cyriac, J.C. Dietrich, C.A. Blain et al. / Regional Studies in Marine Science 35 (2020) 101131 the key factors that govern it is important for local coastal and 2018). Typically, small scale plumes are also shallow and surface estuarine resource management. advected and tend to respond rapidly to wind forcing. This behav- Factors that influence plume behavior can be grouped into ior is illustrated by the response of the Maipo River Plume located two categories: (a) those related to the geometry of the coastline, in central Chile to diurnal variability in the local sea breeze. When which include the width of the river mouths and the alignment wind forcing is weak, Coriolis effects dominate and the plume is of the coastline; and (b) the external forcing conditions, which confined near the inlet and tending to turn in the down-shelf include tides, river discharge, prevailing winds, currents, etc. Ide- direction. However, as the onshore sea breeze begins and the alized plumes in the absence of any external forcing are expected wind speeds increased, the direction of plume spreading was to form a re-circulating bulge at the river mouth and spread reversed and it starts to flow in the up-shelf direction (Pinones down-shelf in the direction of Kelvin wave propagation due to et al., 2005). The Berau river plume located in the Indonesian effects of the earth's rotation. The shape of the bulge and the archipelago is an example of a small plumes in near equatorial amount of freshwater transported in the down-shelf current are regions where the Coriolis force is nearly zero. Plume spreading dependent on the width of the river mouths and the plume out- was observed to be primarily in the windward direction in this flow velocity, which can be quantified using the Rossby number. region (Tarya et al., 2015). Discharges from narrow river mouths are accompanied by high Small scale plumes are also formed at the mouths of several outflow velocities and therefore have a high Rossby number. Such bays and estuaries in the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). These plumes are expected to have a larger offshore spreading, and river-dominated estuaries have limited connectivity to the NGOM freshwater transport in the down-shelf direction is less promi- and form shallow plumes that introduce cross-shore salinity and nent. Estuaries with wider river mouths are typically associated velocity gradients in the shelf waters and form density fronts with lower Rossby numbers due to their relatively low velocities where surface material converges or slows (Roth et al., 2017). and they experience the effects of rotation more prominently During an oil spill, which are frequent in the these estuarine with a recirculating bulge and down-shelf freshwater transport. plumes have the potential to act as natural barriers that prevent The presence of realistic forcings such as ambient currents and oil from beaching against the coastline (Roth et al., 2017). There- prevailing winds can distort this behavior by enhancing or re- fore, the ability to predict the plume behavior at the mouth of stricting the growth of the recirculating bulge and down-shelf these estuaries is crucial for planning oil spill response operations current (Choi and Wilkin, 2007; Garvine, 1995; Fong and Geyer, in the Gulf. 2002; Jurisa and Chant, 2012; Falcieri et al., 2013). The buoyant plume from Mobile Bay, Alabama, a river- dominated estuarine system with a narrow and shallow con- The dominant role played by local wind forcing in the spread- nection to the shelf, has been studied via satellite imagery and ing of surface advected plumes across the continental shelf is doc- in-situ observations (Stumpf et al., 1993; Dzwonkowski et al., umented in several observational (e.g. Janzen and Wong, 2002; 2015). The plume was found to be sensitive to wind forcing Whitney and Garvine, 2005; Osadchiev and Sedakov, 2019) and despite relatively low wind speeds. The shallow nature of the modeling (e.g. Xing and Davies, 1999; Fong and Geyer, 2001; plume made it highly susceptible to wind forcing, with the Choi and Wilkin, 2007) studies. During light winds, plumes are wind becoming more effective in modifying the plume structure, more affected by the effects of rotation and exhibit a preferen- via weakening of the density gradients as the plume expanded tial down-shelf movement. Downwelling winds tend to increase offshore. Downwelling winds caused a westward elongation of this alongshore transport, whereas upwelling winds increase the the surface-advected plume, and upwelling winds reversed and offshore spreading of the plumes. Offshore winds are expected widened the plume. Perdido Bay estuary, situated adjacent to to increase the offshore spread, whereas onshore winds restrict Mobile Bay along the Florida-Alabama coast, is another semi- the plume to the coastline. In addition to the direction, the wind enclosed bay system that interacts with the coastal ocean through magnitude is also important and the Wedderburn number can be a narrow inlet.
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